In the Spell's Embrace
by lotus325
Summary: On a rainy day, mystification is binding and discovering things you never knew existed in your house is inevitable. A ByaRen AU.


**Summary**: On a rainy day, mystification is binding and discovering things you never knew existed in your house is inevitable. Of contemplations and housework. Renji/Byakuya.

It's a little strange...it doesn't have much of a plot; it is somewhat merely a slice of life. And urrg, I had no idea which genre to place this under.

**Disclaimer:** No copyright infringement is intended to Tite Kubo's _Bleach_ in any way.

_**In the Spell's Embrace**_

* * *

**_—:—:—_**

* * *

It was a colder day than it should be with the window's spread wide open, the few hours of thunderstorm clearly causing the chill. It made the atmosphere a non-dispelling grey, magnified by the day's falling of the sun. Six o'clock had just passed a mere half-hour ago and where it should have been a cheerful sunny weather; it had been captive in an unexpected turn. It suited Kuchiki Byakuya all too well for he found he always enjoyed this sort of weather, that his mood was always ever elevated in these times.

It was inconvenient, however, for going home without trying not to become soaked…or as it were, trying not to allow the case files in his arms to absorb any rain water. Without an umbrella, the dapper man had caught the blunt of it, shielding the files with his purposely hunched torso, and his grey suit turning charcoal in the heavy downpour, the other hand clutching to an overfilled dark leather briefcase as he hurried the distance to his car.

Twenty five minutes later, upon ensuring that the casework was intact in the sleek vehicle and arriving home; Byakuya sighed and left to change out of the uncomfortably wet top layers of suit. It was a boring, misery of a day at the office and he wanted nothing more than to sit back, listen absently to the pounding rain dancing on their rooftop and to fall into slumber. Alas, there was still much to be done yet despite the urgent paperwork, he would ease it up a bit, at last. Tomorrow was his only day off for the week; he could allow himself that much.

Padding up the stairs into the bedroom again, the noble stretched his arms back, feeling them tense then relax as joints realigned. Taking hold of the briefcase in his languished state felt much better, and he turned from the bedroom to the study and gracelessly dropped it next to the large, cherry wood glassed desk.

As Byakuya turned to leave, a misplaced item caught his eye: large pajamas previously thrown carelessly on the floor.

"Oh, Abarai," the noble outright rolled his eyes, understanding and a bit annoyed all at once, and then proceeded to pick up the soft blue cotton and headed out of the study to the laundry hamper before dumping it in. It was Renji's, of course, and most likely because the redhead had been in a rush this morning, invading their shared office space as he scrambled to collect necessary files he hadn't arranged the night before. Byakuya remembered leaving for his own work moments later.

That probably meant that Renji didn't have breakfast again this morning...

And Renji was supposed to be home already even considering heavy traffic during rain hours. It was fifty-five already, nearly seven… They normally came home around the same time. Surely the storm would not cause this much of a delay…? But it was a storm barely seen before in its intensity. Perhaps the roads were unsafe to drive in…

_My office is even further away than his…_

But there was no need to linger on those thoughts; Renji would call or text him if anything arose. Even without his empty, delicate stomach mourning food in the form of rumblings, he knew starting dinner was the priority.

In the spacious kitchen, twenty minutes later, a small dinner was started and it was then when the phone rang. It was Renji.

"Renji," Byakuya said up by way of greeting when he picked up.

"Hey, Byakuya." Renji sounded tired. "How was your day?"

"Fine. How are you?" _Is everything alright?_

"Eh…Yeah, yeah, sorry didn't call earlier. I tried thought. The phone connections kept wavering on and off..." Byakuya released a breath. _Thank you for calling_. He made a small sound in answer and had to contain a chuckle when Renji grumbled under his breathe, "Effing storm. Hell of an annoyance!" There was a light static on the line.

"That's fine. Shall I presume you are staying late today, then?"

"Have to. There's more paperwork to be finalized after today's incident," the sheer amount of misery dripping from Renji's voice conveyed his thoughts of paperwork perfectly. With upturned lips, Byakuya thought of Renji and his ever humorous woes of endless paperwork.

"Of course. Whenever is there not any?" On the other line, Renji chuckled in response to the rhetorical question and the Kuchiki paused, glancing at the incomplete salad and half-cut large yellow peppers and thin red and green ribbons of which Renji christened 'prone to giving atomic chemical burns' littered on one side of the cutting board and continued. "I cooked."

"You _killed_ what?"

Byakuya scoffed. "You presume much, Abarai. I _cooked_. I'm cooking."

"Aww, I was just teasing you. Don't worry; your cooking is the best in the world! It's _hot_ as hell!"

Byakuya knew his cooking was far from those with such proclaimed titles, but it was nowhere near as bad as Renji made it out to be with his teasing comment! _It is only because you do not have the endurance of taste for certain spices._ …which was precisely why he planned to put it in his own dish after, separate of anything the redhead might touch, let alone consume.

"Perhaps I should only make enough for one."

"That's me, right?" Another grey-orbed eye role slipped past the noble's notice at Renji's cheeky tone.

"Of course," he decided to play along, a teasing lilt in his deep voice emerging with the playful words. Truthfully he added in afterthought, "I will leave your dinner in the fridge if you're too late then."

"Thanks, my love. See you in around two-ish hours."

"Bye," Byakuya ended the call, an upturn of lips returning on the pale face, distinctly changing the colder features into something much softer, much sweeter.

His bowed head raised and he looked up.

The room suddenly silently flashed white from the double glass doors then the fights flickered once, twice and stabilised itself. The stove and microwave times reset and remained blinking, though in those seconds the heat on the pan searing salmon did not waver much. Byakuya turned his head in that direction, but he did not physically start at the power-outage, half-expecting it.

The thunder that had stopped for a while picked up again and vast sound encompassing rumbles filled the heavy atmosphere. Now, clouds had completely overwhelmed the setting sun and rain poured in waves so thick that it was difficult to discern features passed scant few metres.

It started to come through the screen from the open kitchen glass door to the patio and as Byakuya went to shut it, a sudden bang ascended from below distinctly unlike that of descending thunder.

It was a shattering noise and that meant, definitely, something had fallen. _Probably china. _Something had maybe even been broken.

Byakuya slipped on sandals and then took to going down the dark stairwell leading to the lowest level, the basement. He didn't go there often, but it was used mainly as storage. A slender hand reached over and flicked on the light at the top of the stairwell, its dying glow so low in the darkness that Byakuya made a mental note to ask Renji to change them. The stairs croaked as the sinewy man went down the steep steps and as soon as he had gotten even half-way down, the usual ritualistic rush of coldness enveloped his slender frame as it descended to the lowest level.

All the way down, the noble gazed around, eyes chancing upon the high-placed windows around the basement and the inches thick of rain water flooding the ground in its persistence of clinging to the window base on the other side. The rainwater, hail-like, crushed the delicate flowers enough to be devoid of life and pounded the windows and a symphony of tragic noise filled the air.

_There it is._

There it was. The shards of a large elegant vase Renji's co-worker had once gifted the couple lay scattered across the cement-bare floor. Fake flowers of various pink shades littered about the mess.

A pity since the ornamental ceramic was lovely, but it was no use lamenting it. It shattered, life shattered. Being careful around the glass, he picked up those rose shades of petals and placed them aside.

Byakuya knew he would need to check on the salmon in a few minutes, and this gave the few minutes he needed to collect the shards in one place. _There's a brush and dust-pan Renji put in the back storage room_, Byakuya remembered, sandal-covered small feet already leading him there.

The noble headed toward the last separate room in the basement. It was merely a cold room and served them well as a main storage room. It was not properly furnished like the main room and the entrance was a door-length frame with drapes to cover. The dapper man pushed the curtains to the left with a steady hand and hooked it behind a curtain holder on the wall.

First his eyes took in the light that rushed into the somewhat door-shaped exposed area and he peered into the darkened state before taking a step forward.

The dust registered at once to his delicate noise and he crumbled his face a little in a frown. The noble couldn't help but hold his inhalations for a few moments, disliking the damp air despite trying to become accustomed to it. _This side certainly requires immediate renovations, _was his final thought before the noble flicked on the light switch.

It was the same thing here, that expiration. _Except this light is visibly brighter by a couple of notches._ It s_till requires replacing_, he thought as he glanced around the room spying for the necessary items. His eyes passed over the various items on those shelves on the wall Renji himself had attached. Three pans they had abandoned, various boxed items he never used, canned goods he wasn't even aware of being there, spare parts of… _- there!_

It was on one of the tallest shelves, Byakuya sighed in irritation. Whatever caused Renji to place a necessary item on the very top shelf Byakuya couldn't fathom, especially since the redhead knew the shorter man didn't have his height advantage. A small voice in the back of his mind said that the redhead didn't do it on purpose, probably truthfully thinking that the older man would not be there often, and that was if at all.

_A stool then_, he settled.

A few steps took him to a darkened corner where the stool innocently sat. Bending his knees a little, Byakuya reached for the white plastic when movement caught his eye and he quickly flicked his grey orbs to the darkness a few inches behind the stool and his hands.

Bugs moved in thriving life, maggot-like. They were discernible in the dark in only their small, beetle-like shapes and as one mass of giant movement as they crawled around the small corner area. Startled, Byakuya stepped back in a calm movement but with a tiny gasp, taking the stool with him mechanically, unable to tear his eyes away as the bugs scrambled about in their panic at the abrupt shift of a usually stagnant area. A small black gap between the wall corners indicated they were coming from behind…from somewhere. _From the outside…from the underground of the basement?_ The horror of the disgusting sight sent a sick feeling at the pit of his stomach as the various bugs continued to crawl further around the small area, looking all too slimy and too close and poisonous and _lethal_ and _sycophantic_ _and_ –

Trying to calm his slightly racing heart, Byakuya signed deeply and moved away with the sight, promising himself that he would make Renji deal with the bug bomb as soon as he came home. Nothing like that should have ever been allowed to fester in their house, despite their not going to the storage room to monitor often!

A sudden visage of those bugs crawling over his body came to mind and Byakuya immediately protested as he blinked furiously to dispel the unwanted images, moving away for change.

Byakuya shuddered, resisting the want to gag and feeling a little numb and opted to try not to think about it. Renji would probably make fun of him having such an irrational fear…then the man would probably glomp the raven-haired man in mock-guilt. And then keep the noble pressed to the brawny chest for at least five minutes and whisper small sweet nothings in his ear while Byakuya would be forced to patiently endure it.

But he was firm in his resolve; Byakuya vowed he wouldn't waver until Renji promised to tend to the problem as he used the brush to charge the irreparably broken vase shards to one area. Being careful of the small sharp pieces, the elegant man brought what he could of the pieces, large and mini alike, into a full circled pile where most of the damage had landed. He would make Renji help with this later too, he decided as he thought about the dinner that was probably burning to its unknown death. Discarding the shards in favour of attempting to save their dinner, Byakuya rushed back upstairs and didn't even have the chance to regard the lightening-alit room a last time.

"Renji…" Byakuya started, precisely two hours and sixteen minutes later.

"Byakuya," Renji was able to tease him.

"Renji," Byakuya stated back, once again playing that game. It was proof that their formalities had melted since they met, that first day clear in its awkwardness of several unexpected chance meetings in the span of three days, the months after a similar experience.

"Byakuya."

"Renji – stop. I need to tell you something," the icier attitude the noble had kept up with almost all those around him faded with this man, almost. Almost.

"Oh, you're whispering. What's it, are you gonna tell me a little secret?" Renji's fingers snaked playfully around his and despite the fatigue the other man must have felt at having stayed in the office so late, he was surprisingly _alive_.

"_Renji_." _Behave._

It was like that between them sometimes.

Grey eyes met russet ones across the table and locked in a moment long regard.

Abruptly the redhead stopped all his teasing, expression turning serious again in an instant. His other hand stilled the fork and eventually put the cutlery down on the plate.

"Okay, I'll stop…what's up, Byakuya?" instead, his down-turned brows showed his concern, the thumb caressing his palm showing his care.

"It's nothing serious… Just that, today I went down to the back storage room. I think there is a corner that leads outside… There is a small infestation of bugs in that one corner… You must take care of it." _You _will_ take care of it_. Byakuya ended on a solemn note, one of finality, tone utterly serious and insisting. Renji squinted at him in surprise and then burst into rumbling laughter, hunching over and forgetting about his nearly-finished plate of seconds as the back of his pony-tail brushed against rice.

Byakuya's frown deepened as he watched the show of hilarity, becoming more incensed by the minute.

"Do stop with your foolish behaviour, Abarai!" The rebuke did nothing to cause cease to said behaviour, but eventually Renji did gain enough control to stop.

Byakuya took a sip of his tea, patient. _Perhaps after your long day, you were waiting merely to be able to laugh like this. _

Abarai sobered in another instant. "Sorry, I'll definitely take care of it. Just the way you said it, you're hilarious!"

"You will take care of it after your dinner."

"Today?"

"Yes," Byakuya shot him with a withering look.

"What? Nahh, I'll take care of it later. And I'm not hungry anymore…" There was still some food on his plate, but the Kuchiki knew the redhead would put it in the fridge with the rest of the remaining leftovers. Byakuya wouldn't protest. He knew how much Renji loathed to waste food and hated it when the Kuchiki himself wasted food on occasion.

"Renji."

"Byakuya."

Byakuya glared and the redhead brought the smaller hand in ascendance to his generous mouth and placed a kiss on the proof of a heartbeat. Byakuya's perpetually half lidded eyes dropped further at the small caress, sparks shooting up his arm. "Ok, fine. I'll take care of it tomorrow… Promise."

"Fine," Byakuya reluctantly agreed, the word escaping reluctantly. The urgency he'd felt earlier left him a little. Now, here, where he could focus on other things, the vivid image of those bugs didn't disturb him so much. _I'll relent for now…only because of this. _

"Everything else okay?"

"Yes…just a little tired. Let's go to bed."

"Or we could watch a movie on the couch. I'll be fun; we can get a blanket and pillows." Renji offered as they both noticed the rain picking up once again.

"If you wish to."

* * *

_**—:—:—**_

* * *

Renji often tried to fill in the grey-eyed man's silence, an uncomfortable habit attained from their inception. Many times now, these silences were comfortable through time and trust. It was the silence that didn't require it this time. Byakuya was deep in slumber and Renji was content to just _be_ in that moment. The occasional musings of how in Hell he managed to struggle through the social ladder filtered through his thoughts and he truly felt he was blessed.

At one seventeen precisely, the curtains in their large bedroom window were still half open and gave off a slight glow from the pearly moon above. It was a darker night than usual with the ongoing drizzle and the full moon was the cause of the dainty radiance.

Renji watched the few visible stars through their window as they twinkled in their faint shine. The clouds were moving at a great pace, sometimes forming into cute or macabre shapes every once in a while. Renji watched from his reclining position on the bed, arms lying hapless and stretched to cushion his head. Byakuya's smaller frame rested beside him, half on his broad chest and a light throw was pulled up to their waists and both weight a comfortable one for the redhead.

He inhaled the sweet scent of the ebony-black hair instinctively, letting it overwhelm him as eyes slid shut for a moment in drowsiness. Still, it was some sort of inexplicable adrenaline that kept him up…Renji didn't know what to make of it. _But…it's probably from working so long and forcing myself to keep at it. I've passed the point of sleeping._ At the thought of people yelling and _more_ paperwork he felt like shuddering and once again opened a russet gaze to the show of beauty outside to get those images out of his head.

The clouds whipped through the air again, this time calm yet vastly rapid. No other shapes emerged since the taiyaki shaped one from earlier Renji absentmindedly noted as he felt Byakuya's slow breathe brush against his chest, just above his heart, just beside where a curled, creamy small left hand rested.

Two rings seemed to form beside each other in the midnight blue and black shades and then another less translucent wisp formed below them, a ridge of cloudless area running up. It expanded and as the clouds moved, the details of the image formed into perfectly, disturbingly clarity under the moon's exposed radiance.

_The top half of a skull_, Renji's disbelieving mind supplied him. It was of such vivid details that it was impossible to imagine such an image unless confronted in a cloud with the startling scene. It lingered on, unheeding of the rush and a sort of awe enveloped Renji at the magnificent moment.

_So creepy_, Renji thought and started upright on the bed to gain a closer view, completely forgetting for a moment of the one using his upper body as a bed until said fellow slipped off the left side of his torso and thumped to the mattress harshly, bouncing once whilst jerking awake with a startled gasp.

"Waoh, so creepy," Renji, hardly able to believe his eyes, looked on as the skull crumpled slowly, in the back of his mind aware of Byakuya's confusion.

"Renji–" Byakuya's sleepy hoarse voice and endearing sleep-induced owlish features came into Renji's range again. With a silent question he looked at the redhead's face and then turned his sleepy eyes toward the window, catching the last full glimpse of the scattering skull. Grey eyes widened as much as Renji's and he once again rested his dark head on the muscled shoulder, barely noticing that strong arm curling around him.

"Byakuya. Byakuya…" Their eyes lingered a little longer there until there was absolutely no trace that such a thing had ever even revealed itself. The only proof of its once-formation existence was the image they had beheld and the ghost-like painting of it in their minds. Their eyes slid to each other's.

"Did ya see that? Was hell'a creepy."

"Indeed…" It was like something happening that you never in your world could imagine to. And it reminded Byakuya of something. "_Memento mori_."

"…I've heard that term before. What does it mean?"

"Memento mori: remember your mortality. Remember…that you are mortal." _That your death will come and we will lose each other…_

"Ah... Remember death then."

"Mortals are fragile…" _Like a flower._ The noble thought of the rain-crushed blossom from earlier. He continued cryptically, "…its implications are such that you must, in compliance to the term…plan for death, plan for the hereafter." The arm around his body tightened and lowered them back to the bed, together both of them gazing into the increasingly rainy night.

"Because you don't want to regret what comes after, I guess." A lone raindrop hit their window, followed by louder ones.

"Yes, to not wager against the consequences." But it didn't resonate as it should have, Byakuya mused as he watched a single raindrop running down the window in solitary power. _Regret._

"Live a mortal's life… Die a mortal's death…" The rain picked up again, the pale moon dispelled behind thick clouds.

"Because you never know when you will run out of time."

"Because time does not waste you, you waste time…as the saying goes, anyway."

"Indeed. The phenomenon of Death is interlaced with that of Inevitability." _Embracing you so coldly…_

* * *

_(Promise me you won't die…)_

_(Promise me back…)_

_(Whisper it in my ear…)_

* * *

**___—:—:—_**

* * *

**AN: **Partially inspired by Kubo's lovely illustration of _Byakuya and the Bugs_, and unlike where in the manga it is metaphorical for the incapability of escaping instinctive fear itself, here I use it while playing with the idea that he is actually somewhat afraid of them. If you have the time and if you're willing, I'm interested in constructive crit. please.

I'm planning an IchiRuki next...anyone interested?


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